Schooling, Shelter Linked For Parents

July 30, 1991|By TOM CONDON; Courant Columnist

The beat-up, boarded-up brick buildings in Frog Hollow are as dismal as anything in the city. Even the prostitutes who once used them have moved away. The only bit of color is on the end building, and it is a billboard selling Crown Royal whiskey. The houses looks like they ought to be the target for a smart bomb.

They will be attacked, but not with ordnance. They're going to be hit with a smart idea. The buildings will be used to get people off welfare.

They'll become apartments for 46 single-parent families (mostly headed by women, but one man has applied). Day care, education and counseling will be available right there. The parents must agree to finish school, if need be, and train for a job.

The key to this, which makes it different and promising, is that the parents who take part must work at it. They have to go to class and pass. If they don't, if they goof off, they are evicted. Adios.

"To get people off welfare, you need a lot of carrot and a little stick," said Julie James, the social worker who will head the program.

The carrots are substantial. Once a parent begins to work, she or he can stay in the apartment for five years with no rent increase, and can continue to get the services. Officials will even put aside money for a down payment for a house.

The program represents a quiet but substantial change in federal housing regulations. Until now, when someone got on the Section 8 subsidy program, it came with no strings. The recipient could work or be a welfare potato. The new rules say "no mas." Cities must, by 1992, set up programs like this that encourage self-sufficiency.

"The major change is the ability to drop someone from Section 8," said Meisha Kreisberg, a consultant for Imagineers.

Some people need a nudge. But for many, the biggest impediment to getting off welfare is the disjointed, self-defeating welfare

system itself.

I've interviewed several women who completed job training and then couldn't work because day care was unavailable. Or who were trained in a skill for which there was no job.

When people go off welfare, they lose their medical benefits after eight months. Too often, a woman will fight her way off welfare, only to have to go back on because her child has become seriously ill and she has no private health insurance.

James and her folks -- the program has been put together by three of the city's top agencies, Family Life Education, the YWCA and Friends of the Family -- will try to remove these obstacles. The training will be for real jobs, the day care will be there. If there's a problem with substance abuse, domestic violence or whatever, counselors will be there.

If they can't arrange a separate health insurance plan, they'll at least teach the people to get a job with health insurance.

"We're teachers," said James, who used to run a multi-service program in Springfield. "We aren't going to give them things, we're going to show them how to do for themselves. This is transitional. We want to get people off public assistance, to break the cycle."

The plan has been endorsed by the city council. Federal approval is expected shortly. Organizers then hope to raise $2.9 million to complete renovations and get started.

It isn't the whole answer. We still need a major citywide program to encourage children not to have babies in the first place. But for those who have, this is the right idea.